Oscar
nominations will be announced on January 25, and Bill Donohue, passionately
seeking multitudes of Oscars for Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ,"
can hardly wait. While you'd not likely recognize him on the subway,
Donohue, the president of the New York City-based
Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, will get more ink this
holiday season, and more face-time on talking head television, than all the
Catholic priests involved in all the child molestation suits, put together.

Since the beginning of the year, in League-issued press releases and in his
television appearances, the Catholic League's top spokesperson has been all
over the map: accusing MoveOn.org of slandering Christians during the
election; claiming that there's an "anti-Christian explosion under way at
the Village Voice"; calling the environmental advocacy group, Public
Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), "Catholic bashers [who]
put their bigotry on public display"; and recently, maintaining that
"Hollywood likes anal sex."

Bill Donohue has a gruff, grating and irritating television persona and he's
prone to making outrageous comments, all of which makes him the perfect
guest for cable television's talk fests. Aside from accusing anyone critical
of the Catholic Church of being a Catholic-basher, and grousing about how
the ACLU and their Christian-bashing partners won't let Christmas into the
public square, Donohue has his eyes on Hollywood and the myriad awards
coming down the pike. (For more on the anti-Christmas conspiracy, see Frank
Rich's December 19, New York Times column entitled "2004:
The Year of 'The Passion'.")

A
staunch supporter, and defender, of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the
Christ," Donohue is appalled, but not surprised, that the film was recently
snubbed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the people who determine
the winners of the Golden Globe awards:

"Mel Gibson releases the most significant blockbuster movie of the year, but
it's not good enough to make the cut for a Golden Globe. That's because his
film promotes Christianity, and the Hollywood crowd will have none of it.
The only movies they like to make about Christianity these days are ones
that demean it.

"But one movie that
did make the cut in the foreign-language category was 'The Motorcycle
Diaries,' a film that shamelessly lies about the notorious Cuban communist,
Che Guevara. According to the Christian Science Monitor, the movie 'paints
Guevara as an amiable guy who doesn't appear to have an aggressive bone in
his body.' A.O. Scott of the New York Times concurs, saying the film views
Guevara 'as a quasi-holy figure' who turns away 'from the corruptions of the
world toward a higher purpose.' This may explain why Jack Mathews of the New
York Daily News says that director Walter Salles 'comes close at times to
posing Guevara as a Christ figure.'

"In other words,
because Mel gives us a faithful rendition of Christ's Passion, he is shunned
by the Hollywood elite for doing so. But a movie that whitewashes a ruthless
tyrant... making him into a Christ-like figure… gets the nod. The message
that is being sent is unmistakable: there is no room for Jesus in
Hollywood's inn, but there is plenty of room for communist thugs portrayed
in a Christ-like manner."

Donohue recently told
fellow defender-of-the-faith, Pat Buchanan -- subbing for host Joe
Scarborough on MSNBC's "Scarborough Country" -- that the reason "The
Passion" wouldn't get its just due is because Hollywood "is controlled by
secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in
particular."

Here's part of their
conversation:

BUCHANAN: ... Bill
Donohue, what do you think about "The Passion of the Christ"? And as a
practical matter, even if Hollywood hated the film, it seems to me as an
artistic work of art, a smashing triumph, a film of great controversy and
interest, it ought to at least be nominated for best picture. It pulled in
more money than any other picture all year.

DONOHUE: I spoke to
Mel a couple of weeks ago about this. And I don't think it really matters a
whole lot to him. It certainly doesn't matter to me. We've already won.

Who really cares what
Hollywood thinks? All these hacks come out there. Hollywood is controlled by
secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular.
It's not a secret, OK? And I'm not afraid to say it. That's why they hate
this movie. It's about Jesus Christ, and it's about truth. It's about the
messiah.

Hollywood likes anal
sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like
families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional
values and restraint. They believe in libertinism. We have nothing in
common. But you know what? The culture war has been ongoing for a long time.
Their side has lost.

You have got secular
Jews. You have got embittered ex-Catholics, including a lot of ex-Catholic
priests who hate the Catholic Church, wacko Protestants in the same group,
and these people are in the margins.

In the first quarter
of the year, during the run-up to and in the aftermath of the premiere of
"The Passion of the Christ," the Catholic League issued 43 press releases,
slightly more than half (22), dealing with Gibson's film. In addition, a
special section of the League's "2003 Report on Anti-Catholicism" was
devoted to the film.

A typical press
release during the period (February 26) was entitled "Saint Mel." While
excoriating the film's critics for their intolerance, Donohue thanks them
for bringing "the pus... to the surface," in the cultural debate. A week
earlier, the highly principled Donohue refused to comment on the outrageous
anti-Semitic comments made by Mel Gibson's father Hutton during a radio
interview: "Make no mistake about it, those obsessed with killing this movie
will not manipulate Bill Donohue into berating Hutton Gibson."

The Catholic League,
which claims to represent more than 350,000 members, is, according to its
website, "the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organization." Founded
in 1973 by the late Father Virgil C. Blum, S.J., the Catholic League defends
the right of Catholics -- lay and clergy alike -- to participate in American
public life without defamation or discrimination.

"Motivated by the
letter and the spirit of the First Amendment, the Catholic League works to
safeguard both the religious freedom rights and the free speech rights of
Catholics whenever and wherever they are threatened... In essence, the
Catholic League monitors the culture, acting as a watchdog agency and
defender of the civil rights of all Catholics."

The League's Board of
Advisors is filled with high-powered longtime conservative leaders and
activists including Brent Bozell III, the head of the Media Research Center,
Linda Chavez, President of the Center for Equal Opportunity, Dinesh D'Souza,
the Robert and Karen Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford
University, Alan Keyes, the failed Illinois Republican Senatorial candidate,
Thomas Monaghan, the founder of Dominos Pizza and a big donor to various
right wing causes, Michael Novak, Kate O'Beirne, and George Weigel.

"When even phenomena
as innocuous as Oscar nominations or the lighting of a Christmas tree can be
inflated into divisive religious warfare, it's only a matter of time before
someone uncovers an anti-Christian plot in 'White Christmas,'" the New York
Times' Frank Rich pointed out in a recent column. After all, "it avoids any
mention of religion and it was, as William Donohue might be the first to
point out, written by a secular Jew."

Responding to Rich's
column in a press release dated December 17, Donohue claimed that the
columnist had a vendetta against him "for years" because of his "attacks on
anti-Catholicism." Donohue added: "Whether it is my objections to a play
that portrays Jesus having sex with the apostles, or my complaints about a
dung-stained portrait of Our Blessed Mother, count on Rich to damn me for
protesting the bigotry while he defends the offending work. As for Mel's
epic film, Rich characteristically dubbed it 'a porn movie.'"

And in the oft-heard
"some of my best friends" cry of the bigot, Donohue pointed out that "Jews
who know me know that I have long fought anti-Semitism. They also know that
I will not be intimidated by Frank Rich."

To
hear Bill Donohue tell it, if it was the Grinch who stole Christmas, he must
have been a secular Jew; the same secular Jews who are plotting to rob
"Saint Mel" of his awards.

Bill Berkowitz
is a longtime observer of the conservative movement. His
WorkingForChange.com column Conservative Watch documents the
strategies, players, institutions, victories and defeats of the American
Right.